How the Superrich can (finally) get giving right

In a recent Town & Country article, Scott Curran shared lessons from more than 25 years advising philanthropists and social-impact leaders. Drawing from his new book, Better Good, Scott offered practical framework for more thoughtful, strategic giving—one grounded in purpose, flexibility, and a clear vision for lasting impact. Check out the full article below!

The author of the new book Better Good: A Simple System for Creating Lasting Impact on how the superrich can (finally) get giving right.

By Scott Curran

Times are good for the ultra-wealthy.

According to the London-based global real estate consultancy Knight Frank, the number of people in the world worth more than $30 million—aka ultra-high-net-worth-individuals—keeps increasing, with the global billionaire population projected to reach nearly 4,000 by 2031. AI is minting a whole new generation of billionaires, just like the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. Meanwhile, boomer billionaires are projected to leave $5.9 trillion to their kids by 2040, a slice of what analysts are calling the largest wealth transfer in history.

That doesn’t just mean more private jets and superyachts. It also means more money than ever before to potentially be funneled toward charitable causes and impact driven initiatives. Which is good news because, with a few notable exceptions, history shows us that the world’s richest people are usually deeply committed to civic and social good. Look no further than the Robber Barons, with their funding of libraries, museums, science, education, the arts, and foundations that still bear their names.

The emerging crop of ultra-high-net-worth-individuals would do well to start—or expand—their thinking about how to develop philanthropic identities, as well as their social-impact footprints, profiles, and plans. That’s something I’ve come to know a thing or two about in my career as a social impact attorney and adviser, working with everyone from former presidents to major foundations, family offices, and other leaders.

Deploying treasure for good sounds easy. But it requires deliberate design to do it well. Whether someone's rolling in it from their AI startup’s IPO, just won the largest Powerball in history, or stands to inherit the equivalent, it’s important to develop a purposeful approach. Here are four steps anyone can use to create a legacy of scalable and sustainable impact.

Find the Goldilocks Zone

Oprah Winfrey on a 2006 visit to the site of her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.

Almost every charitable, philanthropic, or impact-driven cause sounds like a good idea out of the gate. The key is resisting the urge to say yes to too many things too fast, or adopt others’ causes as your own, or get scattered across causes that don’t light you up or keep you going when the going gets tough (as it almost always does). Instead, to develop a truly scalable and sustainable approach to philanthropy and impact, this is what I regularly advise clients who are unsure if they’re giving too much, or too little, or to causes that are otherwise not quite “just right”: find your Goldilocks Zone. As I explain in my book, Better Good: A Simple System for Creating Lasting Impact, it’s the place where energy and ability meet; where your passion and your proficiency overlap; where the effort feels natural, results compound, and you’re most likely to keep going.

In the ultra-high-net-worth world, the Goldilocks Zone often lies at the intersection of the communities to which these people are most connected and the things they love the most. Oprah Winfrey, for instance, has a strong connection to her African heritage and the country of South Africa in particular; owns nearly 1,000 acres of land in Maui; and cares deeply about empowering others to achieve their highest and best purpose. Hence the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, a boarding school for disadvantaged girls in South Africa, and the People's Fund of Maui, which she launched with Dwayne Johnson to provide direct relief to people affected by the 2023 Maui wildfires.

Dan Gilbert grew up in an inner-ring suburb of Detroit and had a son who died of neurofibromatosis. Hence the Gilbert Family Foundation/Rocket Community Fund’s $500 million investment in the Detroit Metropolitan area, and the neurofibromatosis research clinics that Gilbert established at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington and at the Dana Children's Hospital in Tel Aviv. JB Pritzker comes from a Jewish family, has lived in Chicago most of his life, has a strong interest in tech, and cares deeply about early childhood education. No surprise that his philanthropic footprint includes the Illinois Holocaust Museum, the nonprofit startup incubator 1871, and the Pritzker Children's Initiative.

I have found, time and again, that the best place to start to grow your philanthropic and impact footprint is where you are, with what you already know, love, and do. Everything—at least everything that scales, sustains, and leaves a truly lasting legacy—starts and builds from there.

Begin With the End in Mind

When we hear the name John D. Rockefeller, we tend to think of the Rockefeller Foundation as opposed to violent union-busting. That’s because Rockefeller, like many of his Gilded Age peers, believed that wealth carried both an opportunity to build a lasting legacy and an obligation to give back to the society that made such wealth possible.

As it turns out, the Rockefellers of the world usually don’t want their legacies to be about creating generations of family riches, or a lifetime of passive wealth hoarding. They want the same "something more” as anyone else. Luckily, they have the resources to explore what’s possible, even innovative, in creating an impactful legacy that lasts long beyond their lifetimes.

Paul Newman is a dynamic example. He structured his estate so that he effectively leftthe vast majority of his fortune—including his intellectual property assets and the Newman’s Own food company—for the long-term benefit of the Newman’s Own Foundation. That foundation, funded by the profits from the food company, has given more than $600 million since 1982 to causes including school nutrition, indigenous food justice, and clean water. As a result, Newman isn’t just remembered for his on-screen credits and iconic persona, but as someone who left society better off than he found it—and did so indefinitely into the future. There’s even a tax rule named for him to allow his use of business for good to live on, too.

So, the question to consider is: what do you want your story to be after you’re gone? Choose your own adventure. Just make sure that adventure serves the legacy you want to leave behind.

Be Prepared to Pivot

Melinda and Bill Gates, pictured together in 2019.

In May 2025, the Gates Foundation sent shock waves across the philanthropic sector when it announced it would shift from an organization that had planned to be endowed long after its founders’ deaths, to one that would spend down $200 billion and sunset operations by 2045. A year earlier, after Bill and Melinda Gates divorced amid revelations concerning Bill’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Melinda had stepped away from the foundation, retaining $12.5 billion to be put toward her own philanthropic concern, the Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation. While the dissolution of their partnership may have played a role in the Gates Foundation pivot, Bill attributed it to the exigency of crises around the world.

“There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people,” he explained in a statement. “That is why I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned. I will give away virtually all my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world.”

The lesson here is that any number of circumstances, whether personal, professional, or societal, may impact your planning over time. So, when thinking about your giving long-term, it’s important to leave room for the possibility that your personal situation may change—and also to be responsive to how the world may change around you.

Tell a Story

Mackenzie Scott, who accounted for one-third of America’s $19.2 billion in megagifts in 2025 alone.

Even the wealthiest people in the world need partners to make their giving go as far as it possibly can. The best way to attract partners is by telling good stories. If you can tell the world a good story about the causes you care about, you’re likely to find that your enthusiasm is contagious. Chances are it will inspire others to similar efforts or attract others to yours.

The richest of the rich are particularly well-positioned for this given their astronomical platforms and resources. Think again of Oprah, whose vast media empire includes a production company, a television network, a streaming partnership with Apple, and a longstanding relationship with a Big Five publisher. Or Laurene Powell Jobs, who has made storytelling a central tool of Emerson Collective’s social-impact work while investing in media ranging from The Atlantic to nonprofit journalism. Or Jeffrey Skoll, who turned Participant Media into a titan of socially conscious storytelling before deciding to close up shop in 2019.

That said, you don’t need media, or even words, to tell a good story. Someone like Mackenzie Scott knows this all too well. As Fortune notes, “She is notoriously under-the-radar with her donations, never personally seeking press coverage for her gifts and rarely offering insights into the donations.” Instead, Scott tells her story just by pushing out checks: she accounted for one-third of America’s $19.2 billion in megagifts in 2025 alone. Talk about peer pressure.

In the coming years, as the ranks of the ultra-wealthy continue to expand, so will the consequences of how they choose to use what they have. Their fortunes can shape communities, institutions, causes, and lives for generations. The best examples will continue to inspire others, creating an ever-expanding circle of impact. Every fortune tells a story. The ultimate measure is the world—and legacy—it leaves behind.